Administrators need to up their game

An athlete can only perform to his level best if the people put in charge of making sure they do so, are equal to the task.

This has been proven globally with the role of the administrator, although mostly going unnoticed, becoming more important.

The administrators are tasked with ensuring all logistics relating to the athlete’s participation are taken care of so that the star can concentrate on giving his or her best.

More importantly, it is also the duty of the manager of the team to ensure that athletes are at their competition venue well in advance of the starting time.
Therefore, it is very disappointing to learn that a Namibian boxer lost his fight because the manager of the team did not inform the said fighter of the correct time of the fight.

Even if there was a discrepancy in the timesheets regarding when the fight was due to take place, the manager should have been at ringside to check the progress of the other fights.

This would have put him in perfect position to follow the program.

Alas, this was not done and a fighter was eliminated without getting a chance to even throw a single punch.

That means that the entire money spent on getting the boxer ready for his participation at the African Olympic qualifiers was a total waste.

Blaming this on human error is not acceptable because the manager has clearly failed in one of his primary duties.

This, of course, is not the first time our athletes have arrived late for their events.
In 2008, Beata Naigambo and Helalia Johannes were nearly disqualified in the marathon at the Beijing Olympics after arriving less than 30 minutes before the race was to due to start, with both subsequently running much slower times than they are capable of.

This begs the question as to whether administrators learn from their colleague’s mistakes.

With the 2012 Olympics just around the corner we sincerely hope that incompetent administrators, who think that travelling with the team is a chance for a holiday, will be weeded out before the athletes leave for London.